


On the wings of the storm

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Flying Dutchman, Gen, Ghost Ships, Halloween Challenge, Minor Character Death, THRUSH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: Unexplained hours during the “Yo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Rum Affair”. Just where did that storm come from?
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Original Male Characters
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	On the wings of the storm

*********

Found alive, floating in a life raft, Napoleon’s miraculous survival of the plane crash was greeted with applause from the crew of _The_ _Gull’s Way_. Illya seemed pleased, though apparently unable to give his full attention to it. He had had to take over from the injured Captain Morton and manage the after effects of the mutiny and the overthrow of the Thrush thugs. There was little chance to talk.

Before they went ashore in Hong Kong, however, Napoleon was able to talk in private with him as they changed into the new suits Waverly had brought. Illya had said little about recent events, but what he _had_ said alarmed Napoleon and he wanted to know more. He was also concerned about Illya’s troubled state of mind. “I can see it in your face, Illya,” he said.

“You see too much, Napoleon,” Illya growled.

“Not at all, my friend. I just know you. Tell me about this so-called storm. I just checked and the weather stations in the region all reported calm seas, low wind speeds, zero precipitation. Someone would have noticed a hurricane – they’re kinda big, usually.”

Illya looked at him. “They call them typhoons here, Napoleon, and it’s very strange that no weather station reported it, because we _were_ hit by one when we moved out into the open sea.” His blue eyes clouded. “The sea rose up and a storm came… then _it_ came. Like a response to wickedness… It brought the typhoon…I heard it, I saw it, I smelt it…”

“What came, Illya?”

Illya’s halting description of what he had seen sounded to Napoleon like the result of concussion – a nightmare scene played out purely in his mind. But Illya insisted, “It wasn’t just me that saw it – and heard the voices, my God! – Someone was killed by it.”

Napoleon was sceptical. “We didn’t find anyone. Not yet anyway. Come off it, Illya. Superstition isn’t your thing. Sea fever, that’s what it was – the captain’s poetry – or maybe it was all the captain’s rum you’d been drinking.” Napoleon tried for a joking tone, but it fell flat.

“I had a very small glass of rum,” Illya said coldly. “The captain had the rest. I know what I saw.”

<><><><>

Out in the South China Sea lay an island where Thrush intended the tidal wave machine to be tested for maximum effect.

The wind was rising and the ship had begun to roll a little. Nothing serious. Captain Morton made his way to his cabin; it was approaching the time to open his sealed orders. He caught the stowaway trying his cabin door. Challenged, the annoyingly insolent young man said, “It was such a lovely night, sir, I thought I’d take a walk.” At yet another example of “ _Mr_ ” Kuryakin’s impertinence, the Captain thrust him into his cabin and subjected him to a rant about his disrespect, which gradually turned into a bitter account of self-justification for a past betrayal and miscarriage of justice. Illya’s sympathies were unwillingly aroused by his story and he would have said something, but the ship suddenly rolled more violently. Thunder crashed about them and lightning flashed, printing Illya’s image strangely on the Captain’s retina, and he suddenly found in the young man he had been shouting at, the face of his former lieutenant, his only supporter at his court martial.

The storm had risen out of nowhere and now overwhelmed the ship. In mountainous seas, it flung _The_ _Gull’s Way_ corkscrewing through a maelstrom of clashing waves. A spectral glow illuminated the deck as lightning ran crackling along its rails. 

Nothing could be seen through the portholes of the Captain’s cabin. In the thunderous darkness between flashes of lightning, even the rush of water smashing against them was all but invisible. Captain Morton’s bibulous intake of rum and his memories of betrayal now appeared to combine with malign effect. Hallucinating the sound of strange voices, he cried out and seized the nearest weapon, his paperknife, with the intention of putting an end to his sufferings. Illya watching in concern now leapt up, took the blade from him and putting an arm around him, persuaded the captain to lie down. Catching the side of the cot to keep his balance, he suddenly heard it too: ghostly raucous laughter loud above the sound of the vast seas that curled over the ship and crashed down on it.

Illya’s response was rational: it was the storm. What else could it be? – no-one can summon spirits from the vasty deep. Must be the waves and the wind in the ship’s superstructure. _Must_ be…

The captain was moaning and mumbling to himself in his sleep and Illya bent over him again trying to distinguish his words. “Captain… what is it?”

He suddenly roared, “Don’t you hear them? All the Mortons? They are calling…” His voice sank to a whisper, “Davy Jones has come for me… to join all the Mortons below.”

“Captain Morton, listen, it’s just the storm…”

In a sudden spasm the captain raised himself and, as the mocking laughter continued, gazed into Illya’s startled eyes and began to shout, “ _I must down to seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship_ …” He stopped abruptly and said, “Send the bos’un to me… We must reef the sails…”

“Captain, there aren’t any sails…” Illya began.

The captain roared again, this time with rage. “Mutinous dog! I’ll have you hanged from the yard arm…”

“Captain Morton, this isn’t a sailing ship,” Illya said, striving for calm. “Remember? Scottie is in charge of the engine room. We’re safe enough.” He crossed his fingers at this unlikely assertion, but the captain clearly needed to be brought back to the present. 

Illya’s calm tones had their effect. The captain murmured the last lines of Masefield’s poem,

“ _And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover_

 _And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over_.”

And he fell asleep again, quite suddenly.

Illya could now try the safe and open the sealed orders to discover just how and where Thrush was going to challenge the gods of the sea with the tsunami machine. But he forgot that the captain had left the cabin door unlocked.

<><>

The Thrush men, finding the stowaway apparently robbing the safe, knocked him unconscious and dragged him out on deck and into the teeth of the storm. There they would have thrown him overboard but as torn and flying clouds raced across the moon, its ghostly light revealed the full fury of the tempest. One of the men, a seaman, looking out into the dark saw an eerie light and screamed, “ _The_ _Flying Dutchman_! See!”

The men looked out and fell back, aghast and unbelieving at the looming horror that appeared out of the darkness through the slanting rain and towering waves. They dropped Illya onto the deck and fled, leaving their comrade looking up at the worst, most feared superstition of every seaman.

“It brings the typhoon! We’re doomed!” the seaman shrieked trying to hide behind a crate.

Only half conscious, Illya coughed, near drowning in the waves breaking over him. He tried to raise his head and clutched at the crate to hang on against the pull of the receding water. It slid out of his grasp across the deck taking the seaman with it, then he heard it again, the mocking laughter echoing… echoing… And there above him, suddenly, appallingly, the bowsprit and tattered sails of a great ship as it approached, riding the storm to ram _The_ _Gull’s Way_. As the two ships collided, the dreadful laughter turned to howls of triumph and Illya saw the seaman’s look of horror and heard his final screams as barnacle-encrusted timbers crashed down on him… and the wind brought the smell of rotting wood.

And then there was nothing and Illya lost consciousness again.

<><>

When he came to, it was daylight. The storm had passed. He was still lying on the deck, the sun hot on his back and his clothes completely dry. He looked around for the body of the other man but it was nowhere to be seen.

He staggered to his feet and went down to the engine room where the Thrush men found him. Apparently believing that the strange meteorological conditions had been an hallucination, they now behaved as if nothing had happened. They dragged the ‘thief’ to the outraged captain who also appeared to have no memory of the storm or of Illya’s help during it.

The leader of the Thrush contingent now gave an order, “I want that marked crate brought up on deck ready for inspection when the inventor arrives.” 

The crew heard him with resentment. “Captain Morton gives orders around here,” said Hank, “Not passengers.”

“You’ll do as I say, or my men will throw you overboard.”

Hank snorted. “It’ll have to be a real big army to do that.”

Outraged, the Thrush man called out to his men but before any confrontation could get out of hand, Hank’s shipmates surrounded him and hustled him away.

“And bring that crate up!” roared the passenger.

The Thrush hold over the ship, however, was doomed. The eruption of the boiler began the slide into chaos and a series of uncontrollable events followed. The crew mutinied under Illya’s encouragement and, despite their enthusiastic incompetence, they regained control of the ship.

Thrush demoralisation was complete when it became clear that the plane that had ditched off the port bow had been carrying senior members of Thrush as well as the inventor of the tsunami machine.

<><><>

“So, what happened to the machine?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pushed over by the crew?”

“Maybe,” said Illya. “I didn’t see.”

“Tell me,” said Napoleon, fascinated but concentrating on the purely physical aspects, “I’m curious to know – you haven’t mentioned it – when this storm that you’re so convinced about broke over the ship, were you seasick?”

Illya glared at him, then slowly shook his head. “No. I wasn’t,” he said.

“That proves it,” said his friend.

“Proves what?”

“That it was just a figment of everyone’s imagination – yours included. Come, old friend, finish knotting your tie. Let’s go on deck and join the shore party.”

Angrily muttering about having successfully gained his sea legs, Illya followed him out. They were on the seaward side of the ship and had to walk round to where the gangway had been lowered. Napoleon looked out at the junks and other sailing ships in the harbour, and pointing, said to Illya, “Was your _Flying Dutchman_ one of those?” and not paying attention to his surroundings, tripped and went down on one knee rather painfully.

“No, it was much bigger,” said Illya and came back. He reached down to help him up. “If it’s not the office cat, it’s…” he began to say, and then saw what had tripped his friend, “…a sail?” He lifted the corner of a large piece of torn and filthy canvas, from which a frayed rope had lain treacherously across the deck.

Beneath it was an enormous splinter of dripping wood, a smashed and now empty crate, and the broken body of a man – the seaman whose final nightmare vision had been of the _Flying Dutchman_ falling out of a vast wave.

At Illya’s startled cry, Napoleon half rose but fell back because of his bruised knee and landed on his seat painfully – and also marked his new suit.

<>

“The crate must have rolled on him and killed him,” said Napoleon after the man’s body was taken away. He was examining the scene for clues. “There’s no blood,” he said.

“No, I told you – he was crushed by the _Flying Dutchman_ ,” said Illya. “The storm must have washed the deck clean.” He was looking up at the peaks surrounding the harbour, his back to Napoleon. He didn’t see Napoleon roll his eyes, but he was aware of it and turned. “There _was_ a storm,” he repeated. “There _were_ waves crashing down on the ship – they nearly dragged me away. There _was_ a sailing ship…And the machine has gone.”

“Okay,” said his partner. “Where’s the evidence for what you think you saw – hmm?”

“You tripped over the sail that hid that piece of timber.”

“I only saw the broken crate – I didn’t see a sail or any timber.”

“That’s why you tripped over them. Look, I put them over there… oh.”

He had placed them out of sight with care, to be gathered up later as proof, but there was no sign of them. “They can’t have just …,” he said, looking around baffled, “disappeared.”

“Okay, but whatever it was you found has gone, so whoever or whatever killed him has likely gotten away with it.”

“Well, _that’s_ true,” Illya agreed, and added, “‘ _All I ask is a tall ship’_ … that’s what the captain prayed for, and it came. A ghost ship isn’t going to be easy to find, let alone bring to trial.”

Napoleon sighed. “You know, there’s altogether too much poetic licence, around here, Illya. I’m for the delights of Hong Kong – coming?”

“I think you’re going to need to find that tailor – have you seen the state of your pants?”

========

**Author's Note:**

> LJ 2020 Scrapbook Halloween Challenge. A story based on the image posted by Tinturtle
> 
> The name of the ship, ‘The Gull’s Way’, and lines quoted by Captain Morton, are from the poem “Sea fever”, by John Masefield.
> 
> ‘Vasty deep’: from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part 1, Act 3, Sc 1. Glendower to Hotspur: “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” (The sceptical response being, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?”)
> 
> Superstitions around the ‘Flying Dutchman’ included a belief that sight of it meant hurricanes would follow.


End file.
